Well, we safely brought daddy home last week. What a week it was....Josiah woke up Monday morning screaming with ear pain. I took him in, medication on board...We woke up Tuesday, absolutely buzzing with excitement. We left home at 10 am allowing us enough time to get there. Gary's Welcome Home Ceremony was at St. John's Arena on the Ohio State campus. Talk about pomp and circumstance!!! The guys flew into Columbus and then they loaded them into charter buses, with full police escort to the arena. All of the families, friends, employers, and LOTS of media were waiting there with intense anticipation....
While we waited, a tv channel in Columbus, started interviewing us, mostly Josiah. The cameras stayed on us (I have no idea why, other than I have really cute kids!!!) They reunion was AMAZING! We were able to go right up to the buses as the troops unloaded. Hugs and kisses all around.... Then the tv cameras interviewed Gary.
We were on tv that night in Columbus!!! Here is a link to the news video.....
http://www.abc6onyourside.com/shared/newsroom/top_stories/videos/wsyx_vid_1898.shtml
After that, we headed inside and started the ceremony. Let me tell you, it is quite a sight to see 400 soldiers marching in with everyone going nuts!!! It still gives me chills. After hearing lots of dignitaries speak, the troops were FREE!!! It felt so good to have him in our arms knowing he was coming home with us.
On the way home, we stopped at a Bob Evans to eat dinner. (wild kids and all!) While we were at our table, the waitress came over and said someone saw our van and wanted to thank us (I had a window decal put on the back window of the van that said "Look out! We're on our way to pick up OUR DADDY! Our HERO is back from Iraq!!) This person had purchased a $50 Bob Evans gift card for us!!!! A perfect stranger; not even sticking around for us to thank them.... There are still nice people in the world.......
This past week has been time to catch up...The kids are home from school on break and eating all of daddy's attention up!!! Christmas was wonderful. It was just us. We stayed in our jammies all day! I can't remember a better Christmas, ever.....
Hannah has been fairly stable. We have been having less Blitzen alerts (actually going a couple days with NO alerts!) The seizures that she has had, haven't been too bad. For that, I am grateful... We are looking forward to 2010. Wishing you all a great new year!!!
Thursday, December 31, 2009
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Beautiful Hannah...
How this journey started....
Hannah was born prematurely at 34 weeks gestation. She was a relatively healthy preemie; initially having difficulty maintaining body temperature and needing to grow. She weighed 4 pounds 9 ounces at birth. When she was four months old she began to drool, non stop. We were told the first year she was "teething." At 18 months old, we really started searching for reasons of why her shirt was always soaking wet. We saw various specialists who always sent us to another specialist, saying "everything looks okay." She spent years in oral motor/feeding therapy to help her not to drool. It wasn't until she was four years old and in preschool that we started to get some answers. Her preschool teacher commented one day that she wasn't reponding when her name was called. I took this information to her pediatrician who then orderd an EEG, "just to rule it out." Much to our shock and amazement, the results showed, she was having seizures. That is the day our journey REALLY began. Once she began taking seizure medication the drooling almost stopped completely. (She will still drool to this day when she is having seizure activity). Since then, it has been a roller coaster; countless medications and medication changes. She has never really reponded well to any medication.
About two years after she was diagnosed with epilepsy, the doctors noticed that her blood pressure was running high. After many tests, she was diagnosed with hypertension. We still are not sure why, but her cardiologist feels her blood vessels are thicker than normal.
About this same time, we also began looking into why Hannah was such a horrible sleeper. She would thrash, talk, move every which way, during her sleep. The sleep studies revealed that she has alveolar hypoventilation sydrome, which means she has too much carbon dioxide in her system when she sleeps. To help this, she wears a BI-PAP at night. This has been monumental in giving her more effective and quality of sleep.
Every day is a challenge for Hannah and our family as a whole. Blitzen has been an absolutely wonderful addition. She calms herself sometimes just by petting and loving on him. He has been trained in behavior disruptions and will sometimes be able to stop a meltdown from getting out of control.
It has been extra hard on the whole family since daddy is deployed to Iraq. He has been gone since January 09 and will gone until Jan 2010. We get to talk with him by phone and on the web cam; which is nice, but not the same!! Blitzen has helped to make his absence go just a little smoother....
About two years after she was diagnosed with epilepsy, the doctors noticed that her blood pressure was running high. After many tests, she was diagnosed with hypertension. We still are not sure why, but her cardiologist feels her blood vessels are thicker than normal.
About this same time, we also began looking into why Hannah was such a horrible sleeper. She would thrash, talk, move every which way, during her sleep. The sleep studies revealed that she has alveolar hypoventilation sydrome, which means she has too much carbon dioxide in her system when she sleeps. To help this, she wears a BI-PAP at night. This has been monumental in giving her more effective and quality of sleep.
Every day is a challenge for Hannah and our family as a whole. Blitzen has been an absolutely wonderful addition. She calms herself sometimes just by petting and loving on him. He has been trained in behavior disruptions and will sometimes be able to stop a meltdown from getting out of control.
It has been extra hard on the whole family since daddy is deployed to Iraq. He has been gone since January 09 and will gone until Jan 2010. We get to talk with him by phone and on the web cam; which is nice, but not the same!! Blitzen has helped to make his absence go just a little smoother....
1 comment:
So happy for all of you! That was a very nice gesture from the stranger at Bob Evans, you're right there are lots of nice appreciative people out there.
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